Welfare concerns for missing woman - Warwickshire Police, September 2022

On 27 September 2022 a report was made to Warwickshire Police concerning the welfare of a woman who had not been seen for a week. The woman was known to use opiate drugs and had failed to collect a prescription for the dependency. 

Warwickshire Police categorised the incident as a ‘concern – not missing’ and graded it as requiring a ‘scheduled response’. Warwickshire Police made attempts to locate the woman and found her dead at her address two days after the initial concern was raised. 

We obtained the incident log, call recordings, radio transmissions and applicable force policies in relation to the incident. We took statements from police staff and members of the public. 

Our investigation concluded there was no indication any police officer or member of police staff may have behaved in a manner that would justify the bringing of disciplinary proceedings or committed a criminal offence.

However, we recommended one police staff undergo the reflective practice to address individual learning points.

We carefully considered whether there were any organisational learning opportunities arising from the investigation. We make learning recommendations to improve policing and public confidence in the police complaints system, and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents. In this case, the investigation has not identified any learning.